Being My Future
by SummerSerendipity
Summary: He couldn't comprehend how they moved on so fast, putting the past behind them and only worrying about the Now. He admired them, he wanted to be like them. Maybe they could tell him how. Then he could cast off the monster he had been living as. Oneshot


Author Note: I don't own Naruto but I do own this story. Please do not copy it and claim it's yours. (Not that anybody would want to, just taking precautionary measures here!) Uh, what else? Oh yeah, please leave a reveiw. No flames, but I can take constructive critisism.

Being My Future

By: Mitsuki355

Fifteen-year-old Sakura Haruno sat down next to her teammate and crush, Sasuke Uchiha. He was staring bleakly into the distance, his onyx eyes holding less emotion than a rock. His hands were flopped unceremoniously in his lap, seemingly dead. A shadow hung over his face as if he were reliving a nightmare from the previous night.

How Sakura longed the hold him and feel his heart beat next to hers. How she longed to be able to light up his eyes and take away the darkness around him. She had loved him so long, being teamed with him had been like winning the lottery.

_Even though a lot of it was the satisfaction of seeing Ino's face._ She thought guiltily. The look of extreme horror the blonde girl possessed was priceless.

"Sakura, do you ever want to go back and change the past?" Sasuke's voice jolted the pink haired girl from her thoughts.

_Oh gosh, he's asking me! _She thought, excitement racing through her body like electricity. _Sasuke's talking to ME! _Then, remembering the question she replied, "Of course. Like, there was that time I yelled at Naruto for taking my forehead protector when it had really just fallen off my desk."

"No, I mean like so badly that you would die in order to change what happened." Sasuke replied.

_Where is this coming from? _Sakura wondered._ What has happened to him that he would die to change it? _"No," She said slowly, "I've never been through a disaster like that."

"I didn't think so," Sasuke said, standing up. "You're lucky." He turned and began to walk away, but then he stopped again. "Have you seen Naruto?"

Sakura shook her head, still dumbfounded by his words. "Try the Ramen booth."

Sasuke didn't reply, he just walked away in his usual melancholy way.

Naruto was happily slurping up ramen noodles, slopping broth all over his face and getting carrots stuck to his chin in the process when Sasuke walked in and sat down next to him.

"Naruto?"

"Hmm?" Naruto paused, mid-slurp, noodles hanging limply from his mouth.

"Do you ever resent the Fourth for sealing that demon inside you, an innocent baby, and not someone else? Do you ever hate him for not giving you a choice?" He asked quietly.

Naruto cocked his head for a moment to think, slurping his ramen up and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "I've never really thought about it, but now that you ask, I don't think that he really had a choice. His village was being annihilated and he had to make a split second decision." He grinned. "Besides, with the help from the demon fox, I can become Hokage."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. He had expected something like that from Naruto. "Never mind then." He stood and left.

Walking down the street he watched people happily playing with children, families enjoying time together and he almost cried.

_How do they deal with tragedy? _He wondered. _Are they like me? Do they become monsters surviving for the sole purpose of revenge, or do they mourn it, accept it, and move on like Naruto? How does he keep going like he does when all people do is scorn him and move away as if he were diseased._ Sasuke sighed. He may have looked like he hated Naruto, but secretly he admired him. _Maybe if I was like Sakura, pretty and smart with a perfect life that has no tragedy worse than a bad hair day._ He regretted being so cold to her, but he just couldn't bring himself to trust or love again, for fear that those beloved people might slip away, as they had done before in the past.

Sasuke looked to the sky, the starts were starting to come out, their twinkling light lighting the pathways of Konoha. _That's where Naruto and Sakura will be, but what about me?_ Maybe, just maybe, he could start to move on and forget the past.

"Sasuke?"

The boy turned. It was Sakura.

"You don't have to forget your family or fill in the hole where they used to be." She whispered softly. "You just have to love them as if they were still here. The wounds will heal on their own."

It was right there, in the moonlight, that Sasuke realized how incredibly beautiful Sakura was. He didn't care who told her about his past, or how annoying he used to think she was. All that mattered was now. Not the past, not the future, but right here with the girl he suddenly loved.

"Thank you." Then Sasuke Uchiha, ninja rookie extraordinaire, leaned over and kissed Sakura long and hard. "Thank you for being my future."


End file.
